Professor - Department of Neuroscience Professor - Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology Ph.D., University of Rochester, 1999 One Baylor Plaza Baylor College of Medicine Houston TX, 77030 Telephone: 713-798-4494 - Fax: 713-798-3946 Email: rasband@bcm.tmc.edu Web:neuro.bcm.edu/rasbandlab

The long range goals of Dr. Rasband’s lab are to elucidate the processes that underlie the molecular assembly of electrogenic compartments of axons and the role that myelinating cells (oligodendrocytes and Schwann cells) play in this process in health and in disease.  The Rasband lab explores the molecular basis of signaling between glial cells and axons in the brain and spinal cord under a variety of conditions including the normal process of myelination that occurs during development, demyelination and remyelination in disorders such as multiple sclerosis and the responses of axons and their myelinating cells to injuries of various types, including trauma.  Dr. Rasband’s laboratory is working to understand the underlying mechanisms that regulate the clustering of ion channels at the sites that initiate and propagate action potentials:  the axon initial segment and nodes of Ranvier.  Many nervous system diseases and injuries result in the disruption of these domains.  For example, traumatic brain and spinal cord injury (TBI and SCI), as well as demyelinating diseases like multiple sclerosis result in widespread axonal injury. It is now appreciated that a host of molecular events occurs that ultimately results in the disruption of axons and their excitable domains. One particularly sensitive component of axons is the spectrin/ankyrin based cytoskeleton.   Spectrins and ankyrins are highly enriched at axon initial segments and nodes of Ranvier and are essential for maintaining both the high-density cluster of ion channels.  Dr. Rasband’s research team is working to uncover the molecular mechanisms regulating formation and maintenance of ion channel clusters in axons since any therapeutic strategy aimed at nervous system repair and/or regeneration will require the re-establishment of these excitable domains.

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MR Galiano, S Jha, TS Ho, C Zhang, Y Ogawa, KJ Chang, MC Stankewich, PJ Mohler, and MN Rasband.  A distal axonal cytoskeleton forms an intra-axonal boundary that controls axon initial segment assembly Cell 149:1125-1139 (2012).

A Gasser, TS Ho, X Cheng, KJ Chang, S Waxman, MN Rasband, and S Dib-Hajj. An ankyrinG-binding motif is necessary and sufficient for targeting Nav1.6 sodium channels to axon initial segments and nodes of Ranvier Journal of Neuroscience 32:7232-43 (2012).

K Susuki, AR Raphael, Y Ogawa, MC Stankewich, E Peles, WS Talbot, and MN Rasband.  Schwann cell spectrins modulate peripheral myelination.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 108:8009-14 (2011).

KJ Chang, K Susuki, MT Dours-Zimmermann, DR Zimmermann, and MN Rasband.  Oligodendrocyte myelin glycoprotein (OMgp) does not influence node of Ranvier structure or assembly.  Journal of Neuroscience 30:14476-81 (2010).

MN Rasband.  The axon initial segment and the maintenance of neuronal polarity.  Nature Reviews Neuroscience 11, 552-562 (2010).

Y Ogawa, J Oses-Prieto, MY Kim, I Horresh, E Peles, AL Burlingame, JS Trimmer, D Meijer, and MN Rasband.  ADAM22, a Kv1 channel interacting protein, recruits MAGUKs to juxtaparanodes of myelinated axons.  Journal of Neuroscience 30:1038-1048 (2010).

DP Schafer, S Jha, F Liu, T Akella, LD McCullough, and MN Rasband.  Disruption of the axon initial segment is a new mechanism for neuronal injury.  Journal of Neuroscience 29:13242-13254 (2009).

KL Hedstrom, Y Ogawa, and MN Rasband. AnkyrinG is required for maintenance of the axon initial segment and neuronal polarity. Journal of Cell Biology  183:635-640 (2008).

Y Ogawa, I Horresh, JS Trimmer, DS Bredt, E Peles, and MN Rasband.  Postsynaptic density-93 clusters Kv1 channels at axon initial segments independently of Caspr2. Journal of Neuroscience, 28:5731-5739 (2008).

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Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award, NINDS (2012-2019)

Harry Weaver Neuroscience Scholar of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (2006-2011).

International Society for Neurochemistry Young Scientist Lectureship Award (2005).

Recipient of the Jordi-Folch Pi Young Investigator Award, American Society for Neurochemistry (2005).

Wadsworth Foundation Young Investigator Award (2002-2005).

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• Kelli Baalman (Neuroscience)
• Yu-Mei “Claire” Huang (Neuroscience)
• Miguel (Alec) Marin (Neuroscience)
• Daniel Zollinger (Neuroscience)
• Kae-Jiun Chang (Developmental Biology)
• Szu Yu (Tammy) Ho (Developmental Biology)

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Node of Ranvier triple labeled for Na+ channels (green), K+ channels (blue), and the axonal cell adhesion molecule Caspr (red).

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